Greetings from CancerLand: Sometimes I Almost Forget

Sometimes a day goes by, my breast cancer survivor buddy Lydia says wistfully, a whole day and I don’t think about it once. Not once! I can almost forget I had cancer,you know what I mean? And she says those words with this incredulous expression on her face, shaking her head from side to side as if to say, can you believe it? can you imagine? is such a thing actually possible?

I don’t know if in fact I do know what she means. But I listen and try on that feeling for size, to see how it fits.

Hours later I am sitting on my yoga mat, legs folded beneath me, listening to the teacher direct the class from the front of the room. She models our next posture – a seated twist – while she speaks the directions aloud to us in her gentle voice:…lift both your arms to the side…take a deep breath…extend from the waist…as you exhale, reach with your right arm for your left knee, twist at the waist and look over your left shoulder.

I listen to the George Winston piano CD playing in the background. I breathe deeply. I direct my cancer-treated, middle-aged body to move. At that moment, the yoga teacher adds a postscript to her directions. What I refer to as the Yoga Blessing: if it’s available to you, she says. Words that in my humble opinion ought to be part of life outside the yoga studio, part of life “off the mat” if you will: The Yoga Blessing is a caveat that encourages practice, while at the same time discourages competition and comparison with others. If it’s available to you…I love it! Ultimately it cautions against performance at a level that you just may not be ready for.

That’s the moment when I feel a sharp stabbing pain in the area below my right shoulder blade – the place where a muscle was removed by a plastic surgeon ten years ago to reconstruct my right breast. My gasp must be audible because the yoga teacher immediately looks in my direction and asks calmly, are you okay? Pain during yoga class is not okay. Listen to your body.

Good advice. I hear my body’s protest loud and clear and move tentatively into the child’s pose, head down, face to the mat. I surrender to the pain that has turned into a spasm across my back and breathe into it while soothing music continues to play in the background. As I wait for the pain to subside, I play back in my head my friend’s comments from earlier in the day (I can almost forget I had cancer), and hear a voice in my head say, that’s just not available to you yet.

One thought on “Greetings from CancerLand: Sometimes I Almost Forget”

It IS a lovely thought . The only time I can forget is when I am deeply engrossed in reading or working. With each person I hug I have a reminder that one breast doesn”t give.with each child I pick up I remember that I shouldn”t use that arm. In fact there is a hypersensitivity in my listening to the upper right quadrant of my body. It doesn’t whisper–it screams. Thank you for that story.I may not forget but I accept and feel luck that I am still on a journey.